Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-06-03
DAKOTA RANCH WOMEN
What Cowboy Theodore Roosevelt Says
About Them-They are PIueky and
Sometimes Make Money.
A Chat with Marietta HolIey Item,
About Women-spring Novelties
of Fashion
New York Star

Dokota ranch is an object of interes
quite as engrossing as the !uckless mug
Wump, and regarded with rather NOR
friendly feelings, says that the rancl
woman, the cattle queen as the west il
falling into the way OF styling her, is nt
newspaper myth. She exists; her mum
bers are increasing, and she is one of tn
most characteristic types that the condi
tions of American life have evolved. Sh,
is the modern Independent woman, bu
with difference. She does not stand OF
her own feet like the New York womeI
because she feels her influence in society
nor like the New England woman because
she has been taught to think for herself
but because, like all frontiersmen, she
has been forced to act for herself, anC
with true western grit she does it well.
She knows how to take care of herself
She knows how to take care of her cattle
She knows how to make for her children
8 homestead and heritage. Occasion.
ally she knows what few self-supportine
women have yet learned, how to make
money not only to live on but to grow
rich on, as men and rich men count
wealth nowadays.
"There are women all over the west"
Mr.. Roosevelt said the other day, "Who
have come to be as thoroughly capable of
managing their affairs for themselves as
If they were the shrewdest of men. For
titude and patience we always LOOK for in
woman, but cool bravery and business
talent are the qualities that sometimes
come out strongest when she finds her
self facing rude civilization and left to
shift for herself as best she can.
"Life on the ranch is desperately
rough on woman. There is no call to
pity pioneer of the other sex, for if he
has the right stuff in him it won't hurt
him to buckle right down to the bone and
then he can't but succeed. But for a
woman, to an easterner at least, it seems
different. And yet, so far as one can see,
they like it, good many Of them, and il
brings out the best that is in them.
"They are not all angels by any means,
and woman desparado is sometimes
quite as much to be feared as the worst of
the men. There was one down in Ari-
iona whom the ranchmen tell tales Of yet,
and with something like pride in her ex-
plOits too, who killed, SO they say,
twenty-five men with her own hand
She was hard rider and crack shot so
that 1t was deCidedlylrisky to be covered
by her rifle. But tnat same pluck and
courage that she showed turned into
more peaceful channels makes splendid
success Of some OF the rsnchwomen.
"The women WhO are managing cattle
ranges for themselves, not helping their
husbands TO gain q footing which is
sometimes about as hard, come from all
social ranks, and have drifted into the
busiuess-I don't know what proportion
OF them have deliberately chosen tin
al sorts of ways Some of them are
Texans who were almost Graded with
cattle, and to whom running mower,
feeding stock, breaking wild horses or
doing any sort Of work about ranch is
so much matter of education and habit
that it seems as much their natural occu-
patton as taking in sewing TO notable
housewife left g widow in an eastern
village. They take hold Cleverly with
their husbands if they marry; they strike
out for themselves on a small scale,
which sometimes grows to larger one
if they don't.
"Other ranch women, especially in
Dakota, come rom New England, New
York or the states north of the Ohio.
uGlC dlS SOuO0- ICdCuCIS dUOuS Iutilg
who have concluded to train something
that may possibly shoot more probably
than the unfruitfui young idea. Most of
them went west, in the first place, with
their husbands, to see what could be |
done in a new country, and when the man
of the family died or broke down, the |
wife, rather than sacrifice the foothold |
already gained, stayed on, learned by |
no.
dearly sometimes, failed utterly perhaps, |
il the winters were bad or fire swept her
buildings; succeeded more probably, |
kept her stock in good shape, added to
their numbers and came out a little |
ahead every year. 1t is no joke to sue
coed in Dakota IN cattle raising or tree |
planting or wheat farming, out women
can and do make money in ell three.
"Success is graded, of course, as else
where. The women ranchers whom l |
know personally -and that is no very
large numbeT-are not in the business on |
a large scale. Some Ct them are not
rsnching as eastern people, with their
ideas of the bigness of western operations,
the word at all. They have no
more than six or ten cattle, perhaps, and
from that the number will run up to twen-
W I'VE VI LII y ucdu, Jul IuCl dIC oil SuSI-
getic and business like set of women, who
are working industriously in the day of
small things, ard of course with some,
though perhaps with no large number Of
others, the Gay of larger things has al
ready come"
How the ranchwoman, whose business
Mr.. Roosevelt commends in
the west sometimes makes her start from
the east is illustrated In the case Of g
New York boarding house-keeper, who is
working at both ends of the line just
now. Keeping bOsrders is one of the
most wesTisome and discoursgiBg waysin
which O woman earns living. But
when she can keep $50 of them the case
IS different indeed. This energetic
had laid by money enough
some three or four years ago to take up
and in Dakota and stock, on small scale,
, cattle range. Since that tine Der
cattle have thriven and her boarding has
With the profits of the latter
she has increased the number and i'm
proved the breed of the former, and is
cooking forward TO the day not very far
distant when her western venture shall be
20 well started and under such promising
Roadway that she need heed no longer the
complaints of the parlor floor ledger
whose egg is always minute too hard or
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